If you want to fully understand my journey with Café Britaly then, first, you need to know about my drastically aborted maiden trip there. It had been one of those impulsive decisions. Nearby and with time to kill, I wheeled my bike towards the discreet, blue-and-pink Peckham shopfront where Bocca di Lupo veterans Richard Crampton-Platt and chef Alex Purdie have recently been infuriating Milanese TikTokers and imagined nonnas alike with their self-consciously heretical take on Italian cuisine. An intriguing solo lunch beckoned.
And then, as I approached, I spotted Hugh Wright — the restaurant’s publicist, someone I know a bit, and a sort of infectiously fabulous godfather figure in London’s hospitality industry — sitting at a window table in what I could already see was an awkwardly tiny space.
